It will be appreciated that, in this period of innovation, there have been a great number of new building designs and structures. Of particular importance recently has been the more spherical or quasi-spherical designs which often use of the geodesic design to produce buildings which have a spherical or quasi-spherical appearance. In this regard, there are many buildings which have a resulting hemispherical design. For example, there is a method of producing a semi-spherical building by means of a process which begins with the construction of a round foundation to which an air form is attached. The air form is inflated, and polyurethane is sprayed on the interior surface. Finally, concrete is applied on top of the polyurethane along with certain supports.
In a similar manner, a structure of generally dome shaped for a free form building is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,680 issued to Thomas L. Kelley on Mar. 20, 1979. According to this patent, a structure which is generally dome shaped is formed by a supporting frame work of circumferentially shaped vertical members and laterally extending members on each side. The inside shell is formed by any suitable manner of concrete mesh and reinforcing members while an outside shell spaced from the inside shell is formed generally similar to the inside shell. The inside and outside shells are connected to and supported by the spaced laterally extending members and provide an air space for insulation.
Thus, it will be appreciated that there have been construction and techniques of providing new building designs. However, as far as large substantially spherical shaped buildings, the process used is typically of the geodetic dome type building or hemispherical concrete buildings. Such processes as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art are extremely complex and consequently expensive.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a strong and simple technique for providing buildings having a spherical shape or a shape having substantially spherical portions.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method of constructing a building having a spherical portion which avoids the use of cantilevered beams and members, thereby allowing the reduction of support member sizes.